Joey Giardello: “I Thought I Could Beat Anybody”
By Thomas Gerbasi
From 1998 to the present, middleweight champions Bernard Hopkins, Keith Holmes, and William Joppy fought a combined 16 times. Having said that, it’s little wonder that the former Carmine Tilelli laughs when asked about the state of the sport today. “Aw, it’s terrible,” said Tilelli, who is best known as former world middleweight champion Joey Giardello. “ 12 fights and having a title fight? Jeez, I had a hundred and something before I got one. When they made so many champions, I stopped watching boxing. Every fight was a championship fight.”
For the record, in 1950 alone, Giardello fought 16 times. ‘Nuff said.
Joey Giardello, born as Carmine Tilelli on July 16, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY, was a fighter’s fighter. With no amateur background, Giardello, whose father was an amateur fighter, began his boxing education in the pro ranks in 1948. He scored a second round KO over Johnny Noel in Trenton, NJ, and a career spanning 19 years and 133 bouts began.
Giardello was by no means a power puncher, and he was mainly known as a no-nonsense cutie in the ring. He could make you look bad, and while he could be flashy, he was a blue-collar worker who gained the respect of his peers quickly.
One would think that a fighter with little power would want to stray away from the heavy hitters of the day, but not Giardello. “I thought I could beat anybody. I feared no one,” said Joey. “A slick guy would give me more trouble. The punchers didn’t bother me. They were slow.”
By 1951, Giardello had compiled a 35-4-2 record, and was ready to take on top 10 contender Ernie Durando. Joey took a 10 round decision, and the boxing world began to take notice.
Giardello’s record in his next 12 bouts though, was a spotty 6-3-3. This led top contender Billy Graham to deem Giardello a safe bet. Joey was no such thing, as he took a ten round decision from Graham in Brooklyn in August of 1952. A rematch was held in New York four months later, and Giardello won a split decision…until the New York State Athletic Commission stepped in. Two NYSAC members illegally changed one of the judges’ scorecards, and Graham was given the victory. But Giardello didn’t sit idly by. He sued and took his case to the New York Supreme Court, which once again gave Giardello his rightful victory.
A third match was fought with Graham in March of 1953, and Billy took a 12 round decision. Giardello was a legitimate contender now, but he would not receive a title shot for another 7 years, despite scoring victories over Gil Turner, Walter Cartier, Tiger Jones, Rory Calhoun, Chico Vejar, Spider Webb, Holly Mims, and Dick Tiger, with whom he split a pair of fights in 1959.
The win over Tiger, in November of 1959, earned Giardello his overdue title shot, against Gene Fullmer in Bozeman, Montana, for the NBA Middleweight title (April 20, 1960). As Giardello remembers, “I thought I beat him. All the newspapers said I beat him, but in his hometown, he got a draw.” The Fullmer fight was a war, punctuated by dirty tactics from both men. “He was buttin’ me and buttin’ me, and finally I got underneath him and I came up with my head and busted his face. We’re friends now though,” Laughed Joey.
The draw had an effect on Joey, as he told author Peter Heller in the book, “In This Corner”: “I thought that was it, though. I didn’t think I would get another chance, because I didn’t have the same heart into the fighting game.”
Giardello continued to fight though, and after putting together a 9-5-1 record over the next three years, he was matched with the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson, with the winner to receive a shot at champion Dick Tiger’s title. Suddenly, Giardello had his fire back. “Mr. Ray Robinson was a great fighter, don’t get me wrong, but he would not fight me,” remembers Joey. “Then he wanted to fight Dick Tiger for the title, and Tiger said he would fight the winner of Robinson and Giardello for the title. So I beat him. In those days it was hard to beat me. It’s all according to how you train, and if I would have trained right, no one would have beat me. I just wasn’t the best training fighter.”
The win over Robinson, in June of 1963, earned Giardello a December, 1963 shot at the world championship. That night, December 7, was the high point of Joey Giardello’s career. “Oh, that was it,” exclaimed Joey. “I went all those years, 15 years, before I got the chance for the world title. Robinson wouldn’t give it to me. And Dick Tiger did.” Giardello told Heller in “In This Corner”: “I was determined. If I was fighting a heavyweight, I could have beat him that night…The only thing I remember is he couldn’t hit me…I knew this was it, I’m thirty three years old, this was it. I knew the postman don’t ring twice now. I trained good.”
Giardello held the middleweight crown for two years, before losing it to Tiger in a rematch in October of 1965. As champion he won two non-title ten rounders over Rocky Rivero, and defended the crown with a clearcut 15 round decision over a hard punching challenger, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. The unanimous decision over Carter did not invoke any controversy until 35 years later, when a movie chronicling the life of Carter hit the Silver Screen. In the movie, Carter is shown walloping Giardello, only to be robbed of a win by a racist decision. This obviously didn’t sit well with anyone who saw the fight, especially Joey Giardello. “I was the type of fighter who liked to win for my family, and for something like that to happen, it hurt. I was very discouraged about it.” A defamation lawsuit was later filed by Giardello, who said of the Carter bout, “He was just another guy. I had boxed for almost 20 years, and I had fought Ray Robinson and every tough fighter out there. It was just a regular fight.”
After losing his championship to Tiger, Joey Giardello fought four more times, losing two, with his final win coming over Jack Rodgers in Philadelphia on November 6, 1967.
Joey Giardello retired with a record of 100-25-7, with 1 no-decision. 32 of his wins came by way of knockout. He was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993.
“I want to be remembered as a tough fighter who took no baloney from anybody” said Giardello. “I wouldn’t want anybody to wreck my career, by saying bad things about me to my children. I want them to know who their father was.” To the sons of Joey Giardello, your Dad is a true champion.
